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THE  SOCIETY  OF  THE  NEW  YORK  HOSPITAL 


HISTORICAL  ADDRESS 

DELIVERED    IN    TRINITY    CHURCH.    NEW    YORK,    ON    WEDNESDAY 

AFTERNOON,  OCTOBER  26.  1921,  AT  THE  CELEBRATION  OF 

THE  150TH  ANNIVERSARY  OF  THE   ROYAL  CHARTER 

OF  THE   SOCIETY 


EDWARD   W.  SHELDON 

ITS    PRESIDENT 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2010  with  funding  from 

Open  Knowledge  Commons 


http://www.archive.org/details/historicaladdresOOnewy 


ANNIVERSARY   ADDRESS 

IN    TRINITY    CHURCH 
OCTOBER   26,  1921 

BY    EDWARD    W.    SHELDON 


The  Governors  of  the  Hospital  are  profoundly 
grateful  for  the  permission  that  has  so  graciously 
been  given  to  hold  our  anniversary  exercises  in 
this  venerable  shrine.  Trinity  Church,  which  is 
fortunate  in  still  retaining  the  distinguished  leader- 
ship of  its  Rector,  notwithstanding  his  engrossing 
episcopal  duties,  has  always  upheld  civic  righteous- 
ness in  whatever  form  presented.  But  there  is  special 
appropriateness  in  linking  today  these  two  ancient  New 
York  institutions,  because  on  this  very  spot  the  younger 
of  them  came  into  being.  There  is,  too,  general  his- 
toric as  well  as  spiritual  significance  in  the  association 
of  the  church  with  the  divinely  appointed  mission  of  a 
hospital.  The  wisdom  of  ancient  Greece  ranged  over 
many  human  needs,  and  modern  medicine  finds  there 
its  first  great  exemplars.  Hospitals,  as  we  understand 
the  term,  did  not  exist,  but  the  temples  of  the  gods, 
both  in  Greece  and  Italy,  were  the  refuge  of  the  sick, 
and  there  the  priests  or  family  of  Aesculapius  minis- 
tered to  the  ill  in  body  or  mind  "in  a  full  conviction", 
as  Walter  Pater  expresses  it,  "of  the  religiousness; 
the  refined  and  sacred  happiness,  of  a  life  spent  in  the 


relieving  of  pain".  It  was,  we  recall,  the  payment  of  a 
sacrificial  debt  to  this  god  of  health  that  inspired 
Socrates'  last  words.  That  fruitful  worship  of  perfect 
sanity,  so  characteristic  of  the  Greek  and  Roman 
civilization,  may  explain  the  inscription  reputed  to 
have  been  placed  over  the  entrance  to  the  great  Library 
at  Alexandria,  suggesting  that  the  books  which  it  held 
were  "the  medicine  of  the  mind."  From  even  earlier 
times,  indeed,  the  care  of  the  sick  proceeded  under 
religious  guidance.  The  temples  of  Saturn  in  Egypt 
and  of  Buddha  in  India  seem  to  have  sheltered  medical 
schools  as  well  as  the  sick,  prior  to  the  Christian  era. 
Mohammedanism  in  its  turn  associated  medical  instruc- 
tion and  the  care  of  the  sick  with  the  mosque,  and  in  the 
early  and  middle  centuries  of  the  Christian  age  an  inti- 
mate relation  between  the  church  and  the  foundation 
and  maintenance  of  hospitals  flourished  throughout 
Europe.  Thus  the  hospital  fittingly  became  the  Hotel 
Dieu.  In  the  same  religious  spirit,  the  privately  sup- 
ported general  hospital,  beginning  in  1123  with  St. 
Bartholomew's  of  London,  under  the  Prior  Lahere,  de- 
veloped in  England.  That  model,  though  without  the 
ecclesiastic  connection,  naturally  commended  itself  to  the 
British  Colonies  in  North  America.  In  Pennsylvania, 
their  leader  in  population  and  in  philanthropic  spirit,  a 
charter  was  obtained  in  1751,  largely  through  the 
efforts  of  that  matchless  American,  Benjamin  Frank- 
lin, for  the  Pennsylvania  Hospital,  in  Philadelphia,  the 


first  incorporated  hospital  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic. 
The  idea  of  this  institution  originated  with  Dr.  Thomas 
Bond,  who,  like  many  of  his  profession  in  that  day, 
had  studied  medicine  in  London  and  Edinburgh. 
Eighteen  years  later  it  fell  to  another  physician  of 
similar  experience  to  suggest  the  establishment  of  such 
an  institution  in  the  City  of  New  York.  The  occasion 
arose  in  this  church.  To  understand  the  purport 
of  that  civic  milestone,  a  word  of  preface  may  be  help- 
ful. In  the  year  1769  the  Colony  of  New  York,  with 
a  population  of  about  300,000,  of  whom  only  about 
20,000  lived  in  the  City,  had  not  a  single  hospital. 
A  century  earlier,  indeed,  a  primitive  institution  under 
the  direction  of  a  Dutch  matron  had  been  maintained 
for  a  few  years  near  Whitehall  Street,  but  this  was 
abandoned  in  1674.  Medical  education  in  the  Colonies 
was  almost  as  backward.  In  1767  a  modest  begin- 
ning had  been  made  in  New  York  by  the  estab- 
lishment of  a  medical  department  in  King's  Col- 
lege, now  Columbia  University.  Two  years  later,  on 
May  16,  1769,  the  graduating  exercises  of  the  first 
recipients  of  its  medical  degrees  were,  by  a  happy 
chance,  held  here  within  the  walls  of  the  original 
Trinity  Church.  A  notable  assemblage,  including 
the  Governor  of  the  Colony,  Sir  Henry  Moore,  was 
present.  Lasting  distinction  was  given  the  occasion 
by  Dr.  Samuel  Bard,  a  student  of  King's  College  and 
the  London  Hospital,  a  graduate  in  medicine  of  Edin- 
burgh University,  and  Professor  of  the  Practice  of 


Medicine  in  the  College,  whose  name  stands  high  on  the 
roll  of  the  profession,  who,  after  addressing  the  two 
graduates  on  the  high  duties  of  their  profession,  elo- 
quently urged  on  the  community  the  crying  need  for  a 
general  hospital,  not  only  for  the  care  and  relief  of  the 
sick,  but  also  as  affording  the  best  and  only  means  of 
instructing  students  properly  in  the  practice  of  medi- 
cine. This  moving  appeal  met  with  an  immediate 
response.  Sir  Henry  Moore  then  and  there  headed 
a  subscription,  and  many  contributions  were  received. 
Sir  Henry  did  not  live  to  see  his  work  crowned,  but  the 
Hospital  was  organized  in  1770,  and  on  June  13,  1771, 
in  the  term  of  his  successor,  the  Earl  of  Dunmore,  a 
Royal  Charter  was  granted  to  "The  Society  of  the  Hos- 
pital in  the  city  of  New  York  in  America,"  a  seal  with 
the  legend  of  the  Good  Samaritan  was  adopted, — the 
original  silver  die  of  which  is  still  used  by  the  Society, — 
an  annual  appropriation  of  £800  for  twenty  years  was 
voted  by  the  Colonial  Assembly,  and  steps  were  taken 
to  procure  an  appropriate  site.  The  city  offered  a  tract 
of  three-quarters  of  an  acre  near  where  the  present 
Municipal  Building  stands,  and  Trinity  Church,  which 
in  1755  had  given  Kings  College  its  grounds  in  Park 
Place,  offered  the  hospital  a  99  years  lease  of  a  two 
acre  plot  at  Canal  and  Hudson  Streets,  but  the  Society 
determined  to  buy  five  acres  of  land  on  an  elevated  site 
on  the  west  side  of  Broadway  opposite  Pearl  Street,  and 
imposing  hospital  buildings  were  painstakingly  planned. 
Meanwhile  Dr.  John  Jones  was  sent  to  England  to  make 


a  public  appeal  there  for  funds,  and  to  study  Euro- 
pean hospital  architecture.  Dr.  John  Fothergill, 
the  famous  English  physician,  who  was  then  confer- 
ring at  London  with  Franklin  in  an  endeavor  to  avert 
hostilities  between  the  mother  country  and  the  Colonies, 
exerted  himself  in  behalf  of  the  project,  and  was  so 
successful  that  he  was  chosen  as  one  of  its  first  Gov- 
ernors. Among  the  many  British  gifts  were  20  shares 
in  the  Delaware  Lottery  from  the  Earl  of  Stirling. 
On  September  3,  1773,  the  corner  stone  of  the  hospital 
was  laid  with  due  ceremony  by  Governor  Tryon.  Con- 
struction was  pressed  with  all  convenient  speed,  a  staff 
of  physicians,  including  Drs.  Bard  and  Jones,  was  ap- 
pointed, preparations  for  the  reception  of  patients  were 
made,  but  on  the  28th  of  February,  1775,  when  the 
building  was  practically  completed,  an  accidental  fire 
consumed  the  interior,  "and",  as  the  New  York  Gazette 
and  Weekly  Mercury  described  it,  "this  beautiful  and 
useful  structure,  at  once  the  pride  and  ornament  of  the 
City,  became  a  ruin".  Nothing  daunted,  the  Governors 
made  a  fresh  appeal  for  funds,  £4,000  was  granted  by 
the  Colonial  Assembly,  reconstruction  was  begun  and 
within  a  year  completed.  But  then  a  new  obstacle  to 
hospital  operation  arose.  The  War  of  the  Revolution 
had  exposed  New  York  to  attack,  and  on  April 
2,  1776,  the  New  York  Committee  of  Safety 
ordered  the  Governors  to  have  the  hospital  put 
in  a  proper  state  for  the  reception  of  Continental 
troops.     Breastworks  had  been  thrown  up  around  the 


6 

building,  and  the  posting  of  troops  there  was  deemed 
necessary  for  the  defence  of  these  works  and  of  the 
City  in  general.  By  the  irony  of  fate  the  first  hospital 
patients  received  in  the  building  were  several  American 
soldiers  who  had  been  wounded  July  12,  1776  in  an 
engagement  between  the  shore  batteries  and  two 
British  warships  forcing  a  passage  up  the  Hudson. 
One  of  the  cannon  balls  in  that  action  landed  in 
the  Hospital  grounds.  In  the  fortune  of  war,  the 
occupation  of  the  Hospital  passed  with  the  cap- 
ture of  the  city  in  September,  1776,  to  British 
and  Hessian  troops.  As  their  barracks,  and  occa- 
sionally as  a  military  hospital,  the  building  continued 
to  be  used  for  the  next  seven  years.  When  the  sol- 
diers were  withdrawn  and  the  war  ended,  a  tedious 
period  of  readjustment  ensued.  Among  other  compli- 
cations, a  reconstitution  of  the  Board  of  Governors  be- 
came necessary,  since  several  of  them  had  been  named 
in  the  bill  of  attainder.  Some  use  in  the  meanwhile 
was  made  of  the  buildings  for  medical  instruction,  and 
the  State  Legislature  met  there,  but  it  was  not  until 
January,  1791,  that  this  "Asylum  for  Pain  and  Dis- 
tress", as  the  Governors  feelingly  described  it,  was 
finally  opened  for  the  treatment  of  patients.  A  few 
years  later  the  corporate  title  of  the  institution  was 
changed  by  the  Legislature  to  the  present  form, 
"The  Society  of  the  New  York  Hospital."  That 
notable  landmark  of  the  City,  with  its  stately  gray- 


stone  buildings  and  beautiful  trees,  lawn  and  flowers, 
may  still  be  remembered  by  some  of  those  present 
today.  It  was  this  prospect  which  is  said  to  have  ani- 
mated the  genial  Diedrich  Knickerbocker  while  com- 
posing his  inimitable  History  of  New  York.  No  one, 
probably,  retains  a  more  vivid  recollection  of  the  scene 
than  our  honored  senior  surgeon,  Dr.  Robert  F.  Weir, 
who  began  his  brilliant  professional  career  as  a  junior 
interne,  in  the  shadow  of  those  lofty  elms,  in  1859.  The 
grounds  extended  from  Broadway  west  to  Church 
Street  and  from  Duane  Street  north  to  Worth 
Street.  The  main  building,  with  a  handsome  cupola, 
was  in  the  centre,  on  the  Worth  Street  side  was  the 
North  Building,  on  the  Duane  Street  side  the  newer 
South  Building,  and  a  laundry,  extensive  stables,  and  a 
building  for  lectures  and  autopsies  occupied  other  sites. 
This  structural  group,  which  contained  about  500  beds 
for  patients,  continued  in  active  use  until  1870,  when 
the  Governors  of  the  Society  found  the  financial  burden 
of  maintaining  a  hospital  on  that  spacious  and  valu- 
able site  too  heavy  to  bear.  They  accordingly  vacated 
the  buildings  and  leased  the  ground  on  long  terms, 
which  have,  from  time  to  time,  since  been  renewed.  As 
soon  as  the  necessary  funds  could  be  accumulated,  a 
new  hospital  was  built  on  the  present  site  in  Fifteenth 
and  Sixteenth  Streets,  west  of  Fifth  Avenue,  and  there 
the  work  of  the  Society's  general  hospital  has  since 
been  conducted. 


During  the  progress  of  the  removal  of  the  main 
hospital  from  lower  Broadway  the  demand  for  an 
emergency  hospital  service  in  that  district  was  em- 
phasized by  the  City's  abandonment  in  1875  of  the 
so-called  Park  Hospital  at  the  corner  of  Centre  and 
Chambers  Streets.  This  created  an  acute  community 
need  and  the  Governors  responded  to  it  by  immediately 
establishing  what  was  known  as  the  Chambers  Street 
Hospital.  The  building  utilized  for  this  purpose  under 
informal  license  from  the  city  was  a  disused  Police 
Station  House  at  160  Chambers  Street.  Notwithstand- 
ing the  insecurity  of  the  tenure  of  this  property,  the 
Society  expended  a  large  sum  in  converting  the  build- 
ing into  a  hospital,  and  there  320,000  patients  were 
treated.  This  service  became  so  important  that  in  1894 
the  Society  acquired  a  plot  at  the  corner  of  Hudson 
and  Jay  Streets  and  there  constructed  the  modern  fire- 
proof hospital  building  known  as  the  House  of  Relief. 
Under  the  brilliant  direction  first  of  Dr.  William  T. 
Bull  and  afterwards  of  Dr.  Lewis  A.  Stimson,  these 
two  hospitals  successively  carried  on  an  active  and 
notable  surgical  service,  in  addition  to  constant  med- 
ical work.  When,  after  the  recent  war  the  Govern- 
ment wished  to  acquire  the  property  for  hospital  use, 
the  Governors  of  the  Society  decided  to  accept  the 
offer.  In  doing  so  they  were  actuated  not  only  by  a 
desire  to  meet  the  Government's  need,  but  also  by  the 
facts  that  two  other  hospitals  recently  established  met 
the  wants  of  the  neighborhood,  and  that  under  such 


conditions  it  was  becoming  increasingly  difficult  to 
maintain  in  that  part  of  the  city  the  quality  of  pro- 
fessional care  and  hospital  service  which  the  standard 
of  the  Society  required. 

One  duty  fulfilled  is  apt  to  create  another.  Having 
thus  taken  up  in  1875  emergency  hospital  work  in  the 
lower  part  of  the  city,  the  desirability  of  an  ambulance 
service  presented  itself  to  the  Society,  as  it  had  in 
1869  to  the  Managers  of  Bellevue  Hospital.  In  no 
other  way  could  the  injured  or  stricken  obtain  prompt 
medical  relief.  The  work  thus  undertaken  was  con- 
tinuously pursued  at  the  down  town  hospital  until 
its  sale  in  1919,  and  at  the  main  hospital  has  been  unin- 
terrupted since  1877.  It  is  neither  an  easy  nor  an 
agreeable  service,  but  the  public  need  for  such  emer- 
gency ministration  has  persuaded  us  not  to  abandon  it. 
How  great  that  need  has  been  will  appear  from  the 
record  of  the  245,000'  ambulance  calls  responded  to  by 
the  Hospital  since  our  service  was  installed.  Intrin- 
sically this  service,  which  is  already  conducted  under 
the  supervision  of  the  Police  Department,  is  a  munic- 
ipal function,  and  the  City  may  before  long  see  its 
way  to  taking  the  work  over  entirely. 

In  the  enormous  growth  of  the  City  and  the  won- 
derful development  of  its  many  noble  hospitals,  general 
and  special,  it  is  easy  to  lose  sight  of  the  commanding 
position  and  wide  influence  which  for  a  hundred  years 
this  pioneer  of  New  York  hospitals,  and  prior  to  1850 
its  only  general  hospital,  possessed  in  the  City,  the 


10 

State  and  the  country.  Laid  on  broad  foundations,  it 
has  ministered  to  the  relief  of  the  sick  and  to  the  edu- 
cation of  the  medical  profession  in  a  conspicuous  way, 
and  has  been  the  municipal  centre  of  the  art  of  medi- 
cine. It  has  done  not  only  its  own  work  but  in  a  spirit 
of  helpfulness  has  from  time  to  time  aided  other  in- 
stitutions in  their  corporate  tasks.  Thus  the  Gov- 
ernors co-operated  in  the  establishment  of  the  New 
York  Dispensary  in  1795.  Later  the  Hospital  opened 
its  doors  to  and  sheltered  the  entire  operations  of 
the  Society  of  the  Lying-in  Hospital  from  1801  to 
1827;  the  New  York  Lying-in- Asylum  from  1823  to 
1825 ;  the  New  York  Eye  and  Ear  Infirmary  from 
1824  to  1826,  and  the  New  York  University  Medical 
School  from  1866  to  1869.  There  in  1792  the  first  care 
in  the  State  of  mental  disease  was  undertaken  and  has 
been  continuously  maintained  to  this  day.  There,  in 
1799,  a  few  months  after  Dr.  Jenner  had  announced 
his  great  discovery  in  London,  Dr.  Valentine  Seaman 
introduced  vaccination  for  small-pox  into  America. 
There,  from  1798  to  1870,  a  special  hospital  service 
for  sailors  was  maintained.  There  in  1816  the  phil- 
anthropic Quaker,  Thomas  Eddy,  a  Governor,  the 
Treasurer  and  afterward  the  President  of  the  Society, 
who  had  made  a  study  of  the  reforms  then  in  progress 
in  France  and  England  under  the  direction  of  Philippi 
Pinel  and  William  and  Samuel  Tuke,  presented  a 
memorable  report  to  the  Governors  in  which  he  advo- 
cated a  radical  change  in  the  medical  treatment  of 


11 

mental  diseases.  This  resulted  in  the  establishment, 
on  a  spacious  country  site  on  Morningside  Heights,  of 
a  separate  department  of  the  Society  known  as  Bloom- 
ingdale  Hospital,  open  to  the  whole  country,  which  has 
ever  since  cared  for  the  mentally  afflicted  on  a  humane 
and  scientific  basis,  and  has  gained  a  world-wide  repu- 
tation. Only  last  May  the  centennial  of  Bloomingdale, 
which  in  1894  had  been  removed  to  White  Plains,  was 
celebrated  there  in  the  presence  of  a  distinguished 
gathering  of  psychiatrists  from  this  country  and 
Europe.  In  1816,  too,  the  New  York  Hospital  issued 
an  American  pharmacopoeia  which  had  been  prepared 
by  Drs.  Samuel  L.  Mitchill  and  Valentine  Seaman 
primarily  for  the  use  of  the  staff,  but  which  became 
and  remained  the  recognized  standard  for  the  medical 
and  pharmaceutical  professions  throughout  most  of 
the  country  until  the  first  United  States  Pharmacopoeia 
was  prepared  under  the  supervision  of  a  convention  of 
State  Medical  Associations  in  Philadelphia  in  January, 
1821,  presided  over  by  Dr.  Mitchill.  Even  earlier 
than  this  Dr.  Seaman,  who  was  described  on  the  title 
page  as  "Lecturer  on  Clinical  Surgery  in  the  New 
York  Hospital",  had  issued  in  1811  for  the  convenience 
of  his  students  a  surgical  pharmacopoeia.  There,  were 
performed  for  the  first  time  various  successful  and 
brilliant  surgical  operations;  such  as  the  ligature  by 
Dr.  Wright  Post  of  the  common  carotid  artery  in 
1813,  of  the  external  iliac  artery  in  1814,  and  of  the 
sub-clavian  artery  in   1817,  and  the  ligature  by  Dr. 


12 

Valentine  Mott  in  1818  of  the  innominate  artery. 
There  Dr.  Francis  U.  Johnson  as  early  as  1832  aban- 
doned the  old  method  of  treating  fevers  by  depletion. 
There  in  1835,  thirty  years  before  Lister  had 
taken  up  the  subject,  the  Governors  instituted  a 
searching  inquiry  into  the  cause  of  erisipelas  in  the 
surgical  wards  of  the  Hospital;  this  produced  a*  de- 
tailed report,  with  various  recommendations,  based 
upon  personal  investigation  by  a  committee  of  the 
Governors  and  the  professional  advice  of  the  Medical 
Staff  and  of  sanitary  experts.  These  recommendations 
were  adopted  by  the  Board,  and  included  a  general 
rearrangement  of  the  wards,  many  devices  for  secu- 
ring greater  cleanliness,  the  employment  of  a  larger 
and  more  competent  force  of  nurses,  and  the  construc- 
tion, at  a  cost  of  $50,000,  of  the  North  Building,  which 
represented  the  most  advanced  ideas  of  hospital  con- 
struction then  entertained.  The  results  of  these  radical 
changes  were  immediately  beneficial,  but  fourteen 
years  later  hospital  gangrene,  the  disease  so  prevalent 
in  Europe,  and  the  horrors  of  which  led  Lister  to  his 
discovery  of  antiseptic  surgery,  broke  out  in  the  New 
York  Hospital.  Again  a  careful  inquiry  was  made, 
new  methods  of  ventilation  and  heating  were  devised 
and  installed  at  a  cost  of  $50,000,  and  a  description  of 
the  work  published  for  the  benefit  of  the  medical  pro- 
fession, the  managers  of  other  hospitals  and  the  people 
at  large.  Similarly  satisfactory  results  followed  these 
reforms,  but  the  complete  protection  of  the  patient  from 


13 

sepsis  in  the  actual  surgical  contact  still  awaited  the 
adoption  of  Lister's  world  aiding  discovery.  Mean- 
while a  succession  of  novel  and  important  surgical 
operations  has  been  recorded  which  naturally  increased 
in  daring  and  lasting  value  as  the  antiseptic  method 
established  itself.  In  medicine,  also,  a  galaxy  of 
ftHrtbus  physicians  ministered  to  the  sick  and  steadily 
developed  the  science  of  therapeutics. 

So  this  temple  of  healing  has  been  open  day  and 
night  during  all  these  long  years  to  fulfill  the  pro- 
fessed object  of  its  founders  to  extend  relief  to  the 
sick  and  distressed  poor  of  the  community  "with  the 
most  indiscriminating  impartiality".  That,  as  those 
pious  men  described  it,  was  "the  Godlike  design  of  our 
patent".  But  there  was  another  corporate  object  inti- 
mately and  necessarily  related  to  the  care  of  the  sick, 
which  was  vividly  portrayed  by  Dr.  Bard  in  his  address 
here  in  1769,  namely,  the  education  of  doctors.  That 
purpose  was  again  avowed  in  the  petition  for  a  charter 
presented  in  March,  1770,  in  an  appeal  in  September, 
1771,  for  the  aid  and  sympathy  of  Lord  Dunmore's 
successor,  Governor  General  Tryon,  and  in  an  appli- 
cation to  the  Legislature  of  the  State  in  February, 
1792,  for  an  annual  money  grant.  Immediately  on  the 
opening  of  the  Hospital  for  patients  in  1791  the  medical 
staff  became  a  medical  faculty,  and  organized  for 
clinical  lectures  and  general  instruction  of  students. 
Those  students  in  large  numbers  attended  the  clinics 
and  used  the  library  and  other  facilities  of  the  Hos- 


14 

pital.  The  medical  students  of  King's  College  had 
these  privileges  from  the  beginning.  In  1807  they 
were  extended  to  the  newly  incorporated  College  of 
Physicians  and  Surgeons  and  were  shared  by  both  col- 
leges until  the  medical  faculty  of  Columbia  was  ab- 
sorbed in  1813  by  the  College  of  Physicians  and  Sur- 
geons.  In  1860  the  latter  College  became  in  its  fernm 
the  Medical  Department  of  Columbia.  Nor  were 
students  from  other  medical  schools,  nor  unattached 
students  from  the  city  and  from  the  country  at  large, 
debarred  from  the  privileges. 

Some  idea  of  the  extent  of  this  educational  work 
may  be  gained  when  we  recall  that  at  the  old  Broad- 
way hospital  300  students  regularly  attended  the  clinics 
in  the  main  hospital  building  and  300  more  those  held 
in  the  newer  South  building.  In  volume  certainly  this 
will  bear  comparison  with  the  performance  of  any 
medical  school  in  the  country.  One  of  New  York's 
historians,  writing  in  1868,  said  that  the  Hos- 
pital was  then  "recognized  as  a  centre  from  which 
is  derived  a  large  share  of  that  practical  knowl- 
edge for  which  the  American  physician  has  be- 
come so  famous."  To  aid  the  staff  and  medical 
pupils  further,  a  medical  library  was  established  in 
1796  which  grew  steadily  until  it  was  the  largest  and 
best  in  the  country.  Being  open  to  the  public  it  was 
consulted  by  thousands  of  students  and  practitioners. 
The  financial  burden  of  its  maintenance,  however, 
finally  became  so  heavy  that  in  1898  the  Governors 


15 

determined  to  give  the  collection  of  23,000  volumes  to 
the  Academy  of  Medicine,  where  they  are  still  available 
for  the  use  of  the  profession.  With  a  like  object, 
beginning  in  1840,  a  pathological  cabinet  of  rare  value 
was  accumulated  by  the  Hospital,  but  in  1901,  because 
of  lack  of  room  for  their  exhibition,  the  larger  number 
of  the  specimens  was  distributed  among  the  labora- 
tories of  several  medical  colleges.  Perhaps  a  better 
idea  of  the  scientific  significance  of  this  national  uni- 
versity of  medicine  may  be  gained  by  consulting  some 
informed  professional  opinion.  Thus  in  the  course  of 
"A  Lecture  on  Practical  Education  in  Medicine  and 
on  the  course  of  instruction  at  the  New  York  Hospital", 
Dr.  John  Watson,  one  of  the  brilliant  surgeons  of  that 
institution,  said  in  1846: 

"You  may  in  other  countries  find  larger  hospitals; 
but  none  presenting  a  greater  variety  of  acute  and 
important  diseases.  You  may  find  in  other  hospitals 
abler  teachers ;  but  none  so  willing  as  we  have  been  to 
give  you  our  time  and  services  for  nothing;  you  may 
find,  in  some  few  other  institutions,  greater  oppor- 
tunities for  autopsic  examinations;  you  may  find,  in 
the  cabinets  of  foreign  societies,  more  valuable  patho- 
logical collections;  you  may,  in  other  cities,  even  find 
larger  libraries  than  ours.  But  look  for  all  of  these 
together  in  any  other  hospital,  either  at  home  or  abroad 
— and  you  will  look  for  them  in  vain.  I  say  it  without 
fear  of  contradiction,  you  will  not  find  a  single  hos- 
pital  to   compare   with  this, — not   one   that   contains 


16 

within  itself  so  many  advantages  for  both  theoretical 
and  practical  study  as  this  N.  Y.  Hospital". 

So  convinced  was  he  of  the  truth  of  Dr.  Watson's 
conclusion  that  Dr.  Jacob  Harsen  in  1859  and  1860,  by 
agreement  with  the  College  of  Physicians  and  Surgeons, 
created  two  trust  funds  the  income  from  which  was  to  be 
awarded  annually  as  prizes  to  the  students  of  the  Col- 
lege for  dissertations  on  the  advantages  of  the  clinical 
instruction  afforded  in  the  New  York  Hospital.  Thirty 
years  later  Dr.  William  H.  Van  Buren,  a  consulting 
surgeon,  confirming  Dr.  Watson's  estimate,  added: 
"As  a  consequence  of  this  liberal  policy,  the  New  York 
Hospital  while  accomplishing  its  purpose  of  affording 
relief  to  the  sick  poor  of  the  city  had  become  a  great 
centre  of  instruction  in  the  art  and  science  of  medicine. 
It  had  become  known  abroad  as  the  seat  of  original 
operations  and  solid  advances  in  medicine  and  surgery. 
*  *  *  It  was  the  most  extensive  school  of  practice 
in  the  country".  And  in  1 899  Dr.  D.  B.  St.  John 
Roosa,  a  former  interne,  and  then  President  of  the 
New  York  Post-Graduate  Medical  School,  paid  this 
generous  tribute  to  his  hospital  Alma  Mater: 

"The  New  York  Hospital  has  always  been  pre- 
eminently a  medical  school.  It  was  one  of  the  first, — 
if  not  the  first  institution  in  our  country,  to  place  itself 
open  for  clinical  instructions.  *  *  *  It  was  one  of 
the  first  in  the  world  to  demonstrate  thoroughly  the 
fact  that  no  instruction  in  the  practice  of  medicine  and 


17 

surgery  is  worth  the  name  that  is  not  clinical.  It  was 
the  great  school  of  surgery  of  the  whole  country 
*     *     *    A  halo  will  always  encircle  its  brow". 

In  more  recent  times,  with  the  greatly  enlarged 
educational  facilities  at  other  institutions  and  with  the 
changes  in  methods  of  instruction,  the  number  of  stu- 
dents at  the  New  York  Hospital  has  diminished,  but  in 
all  of  its  medical  and  surgical  services  the  work  still 
continues,  and  one  half  of  those  services  is  regularly 
availed  of  by  the  students  of  Cornell  University  Medi- 
cal College  under  the  guidance  of  its  distinguished 
medical  faculty. 

Second  in  importance  only  to  the  education  of 
the  doctors  has  been  the  training  of  nurses.  In 
all  departments  of  its  activity  the  Hospital  has  from 
the  beginning  felt  the  insistence  of  the  problem  of 
supplying  the  patients  with  adequate  nursing  service. 
As  early  as  1799  Dr.  Valentine  Seaman,  one  of  the 
surgeons  of  the  Hospital,  undertook  a  course  of  lec- 
tures and  practical  instruction  in  the  nursing  care  of 
maternity  cases.  This  was  probably  the  first  attempt 
in  America  to  educate  nurses.  In  the  old  days  the 
facilities  for  obtaining  nurses  of  any  kind  were 
limited.  There  were  no  training  schools,  the  stand- 
ards of  nursing  were  not  high,  and  the  work  did  not,  as 
a  rule,  appeal  to  the  intelligent  and  high-minded  of 
either  sex.  The  Protestant  sisters  in  Germany  and  the 
Roman  Catholic  nuns  in  France  were  the  pioneer  nurses 


18 

of  the  world,  and  were  the  only  systematic  followers  of 
that  calling  until  Florence  Nightingale,  in  1860,  devised 
and  launched  the  modern  training  school  for  nurses. 
In  the  meantime  special  studies  of  the  subject  had  been 
made  by  the  Governors  in  1821,  in  1840  and  in  1849. 
It  was  natural,  therefore,  that  when  in  1873,  largely 
through  the  efforts  of  several  philanthropic  women  of 
the  city,  the  Health  Department  undertook  the  estab- 
lishment of  The  Bellevue  Hospital  Training  School  for 
Nurses,  the  New  York  Hospital  should  have  encour- 
aged and  aided  that  enterprise.  In  1877,  when  the 
Hospital  took  possession  of  its  new  buildings  in  15th 
and  16th  Streets,  it  determined  to  found  its  own 
Training  School,  and  this,  the  second  oldest  institution 
of  the  kind  in  the  country,  has  since  been  in  successful 
operation.  To  date  the  number  of  its  graduates  is 
more  than  1,000,  and  many  of  them  occupy  important 
administrative  and  teaching  positions  throughout  the 
country.  They  have  an  incorporated  alumnae  associa- 
tion, and  a  large  club  house  and  home  in  New  York 
City.  At  Bloomingdale  Hospital  a  separate  training 
school  for  registered  nurses  of  mental  cases  is  main- 
tained. 

This  earnest  normal  life  of  the  institution  in  the 
care  of  the  sick  and  in  the  education  of  doctors  and 
nurses,  has  from  time  to  time  been  intensified  by  two 
great  human  emergencies,  war  and  pestilence.  As  we 
have  seen,  circumstances  did  not  permit  of  any  great 
hospital  activity  in  the  Revolutionary  War.     During 


19 

the  War  of  1812,  however,  the  Hospital  had  some 
soldiers  to  care  for,  and  through  the  seamen's  service 
which  had  been  established  by  arrangement  with  the 
Federal  Government  in  1798,  and  which  for  many  years 
was  maintained  in  a  separate  department  and  building, 
a  larger  number  of  sick  and  wounded  sailors  was 
treated. 

Two  good  deeds  of  our  then  enemy  shine  out 
from  the  Hospital's  relation  to  that  deplorable,  and, 
as  so  many  of  our  ancestors  thought,  tragically  un- 
necessary conflict.  These  acts  reveal  a  chivalrous 
spirit  of  warfare  in  refreshing  contrast  to  some 
belligerent  methods  adopted  in  the  World  War. 
The  first  has  come  newly  to  light  through  the 
recent  discovery  in  the  archives  of  the  Hospital  of  the 
medical  journal  of  Dr.  James  Inderwick,  one  of  its 
House  Surgeons  in  1812-13.  In  May,  1813,  he  entered 
the  Navy  as  surgeon  of  the  brig  of  war  Argus  which 
sailed  from  New  York  the  following  month  to  land 
the  American  Minister  in  France,  and  then  to  destroy 
British  merchantmen  on  the  coast  of  England.  She 
had  startling  success  in  that  cruise,  but  after  capturing 
19  merchant  vessels  laden  with  valuable  cargoes,  was 
in  her  turn  captured  August  14th  after  a  hot  fight  with 
the  larger  British  brig,  the  Pelican.  Barly  in  the 
engagement  the  American  commander,  Captain  Allen, 
after  whom  Allen  Street  in  this  city  is  named,  had  been 
seriously  wounded.  When  the  battle  was  over,  he  was 
carried  ashore  at  Plymouth  in  charge  of  Dr.  Inder- 


20 

wick.  There  four  days  later  the  gallant  Captain  died 
and  after  a  stately  funeral  procession  was  buried  in 
St.  Andrew's  churchyard  with  all  the  honors  of  war. 
Eight  Captains  of  the  British  Navy  were  his  pall 
bearers ;  over  the  coffin  was  draped  the  American  ensign, 
and  on  it  were  laid  his  hat  and  sword.  The  other  bright 
deed  had  a  more  peaceful  setting.  In  September  of 
that  same  year,  1813,  when  the  port  of  New  York  was 
blockaded  by  the  British  fleet,  the  Treasurer  of  the 
Society,  Thomas  Eddy,  foreseeing  that  the  Hospital 
could  not  be  operated  during  the  approaching  winter 
unless  an  adequate  supply  of  fuel  was  procured, 
obtained  through  the  British  Commissary  General  of 
Prisoners,  a  license  signed  by  Admiral  Cockburn,  for 
the  entrance  into  the  harbor  of  a  ship  from  Virginia 
laden  with  coal  for  the  use  of  the  Hospital.  A  suitable 
acknowledgment  of  the  British  Admiral's  humane  per- 
mission was  made  by  the  Governors  and  communicated 
to  him. 

In  the  Mexican  War  a  few  returning  soldiers  were 
treated  in  the  Hospital,  but  with  the  outbreak  of  the 
Civil  War  the  activities  of  the  institution  increased 
greatly.  The  North  Building  was  set  apart  for  the 
exclusive  use  of  soldiers,  and  when  the  capacity  of 
that  building  was  exceeded  in  1862,  the  overflow  was 
cared  for  in  the  general  wards  of  the  main  building. 
Several  patriotic  women  of  the  city  served  devotedly 
as  volunteer  nurses  during  that  crowded  hospital  year. 
In  all  about  three  thousand  soldiers  were  treated  be- 


21 

tween  1861   and  1865.     The  last  soldier  patient  was 
discharged  on  January  15,  1870. 

In  the  spring  of  1898,  when  it  became  apparent 
that  hospital  aid  would  be  needed  for  soldiers,  the 
Governors  offered  the  War  Department  to  receive  at 
our  several  institutions,  to  the  full  extent  of  their 
capacity  and  free  of  cost,  soldiers  requiring  medical 
and  surgical  care.  In  pursuance  of  this,  several  hun- 
dred patients  were  treated  between  July  26th  and  De- 
cember 31st,  1898.  Out  of  113  cases  of  typhoid  fever, 
99  recovered  and  14  died,  which,  under  the  circum- 
stances, was  deemed  an  unusually  large  percentage  of 
recoveries.  Our  Directress  of  Nurses  took  charge  of, 
organized  and  maintained  the  Red  Cross  Hospital 
nursing  service  at  Camp  Black,  Long  Island,  and  41 
graduates  of  our  Training  School  served  in  the  various 
posts  and  camp  hospitals,  including  Cuba,  Porto  Rico 
and  the  Philippines. 

Our  connection  with  the  World  War  began  early 
in  1916,  when  with  timely  foresight,  and  with  the 
sanction  of  the  Governors,  our  medical  staff  organized 
on  paper  the  composition  of  a  Red  Cross  Base  Hospital 
Unit.  This  substantially  divided  the  Hospital  per- 
sonnel into  two  equal  sections,  one  for  the  Base  Hos- 
pital when  needed,  and  one  for  the  maintenance  of  our 
hospitals  in  New  York.  In  making  this  division  and  in 
carrying  it  out  when  war  came,  the  finest  spirit  of  un- 
selfish and  patriotic  endeavor  was  exhibited.  The 
entire  medical  staff  wished  to  go  abroad,  and  it  was 


22 

only  by  generous  adjustment  that  the  efficient  main- 
tenance of  the  institutions  here  was  made  possible.  This 
hospital  unit  consisted  of  23  medical  officers,  60  gradu- 
ate nurses  and  156  enlisted  men.  When  the  time  for 
service  came  in  July,  1917,  it  was  successfully  mobilized 
as  planned,  and  sent  to  France.  There  it  maintained 
at  Ghateauroux,  United  States  Base  Hospital  No.  9. 
The  original  number  of  patients  was  estimated  at  500. 
This  was  subsequently  increased  successively  to  1,000, 
1,500  and  2,000,  and  then  to  2,100.  In  all,  15,000 
patients,  about  equally  divided  between  medical  and 
surgical  cases,  were  cared  for.  Several  of  the  medical 
officers  were  detached  from  the  Base  Hospital  and  ren- 
dered notable  special  service  elsewhere  in  France  and  in 
Belgium.  Several  other  members  of  our  Medical 
Board  were  assigned  by  the  War  Department  to  import- 
ant positions  in  the  United  States. 

At  all  our  home  institutions  the  Governors  offered 
the  War  and  Navy  Departments  the  same  aid  as  in  the 
Spanish  War,  and  this  resulted  in  a  varied  service. 
At  the  15th  and  16th  Streets  Hospital  many  young 
Polish  women  were  trained  as  nursing  attendants  for 
Polish  soldiers  in  France,  Red  Cross  candidates  re- 
ceived short  nursing  courses,  enlisted  men  of  the 
United  States  Medical  Corps  were  trained  as  orderlies, 
assistant  surgeons  of  the  Navy  were  students  in  the 
wards  and  laboratories,  and  members  of  the  Medical 
Reserve  Corps  were  instructed  in  the  operation  of 
the  X-ray  machine  and  the  interpretation  of  X-ray 


23 

plates.    The  Navy  being  in  need  of  hospital  accommo- 
dation, the  Governors  set  apart  the  House  of  Relief 
in    Hudson    Street    exclusively    for    the    use    of    the 
sailors.     During  the  period  from  March,  1918,  to  May, 
1919,  824  sailors  were  treated  there.     At  Blooming- 
dale  Hospital  53  members  of  the  staff,  including  five 
physicians,  the  Directress  of  Nurses  and  fifteen  gradu- 
ate nurses  entered  the  military  service  and  most  of 
them  went  overseas.     The  physicians  and  the  Direct- 
ress of  Nurses  rendered  notable  service  in  France  and 
two  of  the  enlisted  men  were  killed  in  action.     Fifty 
beds  in  Bloomingdale  Hospital  were  offered  to  the  Sur- 
geon General  of  the  Army  for  the  use  of  officers  suf- 
fering from  shell  shock  and  other  mental  disorders. 
Pursuant  to  this,  91  officers  were  treated  and  a  large 
percentage  of  them  were  discharged  as  recovered  or 
greatly  improved.     With  the  concurrence  of  the  Sur- 
geon General  various  instruction  was  given  at  the  Hos- 
pital to  war  workers  in  the  neuro-psychiatric  division 
of  the  Army  medical  service. 

When  pestilence,  too,  has  overtaken  the  City,  the 
Hospital  has  tried  to  meet  its  share  of  the  burden. 
From  1791  to  1807  New  York  was  visited  thirteen 
times  by  yellow  fever  and  lost  nearly  a  tenth  of  its 
population.  The  Governors  agreed  to  receive  in  the 
Hospital  as  many  sufferers  from  this  disease  as  could 
be  cared  for  without  danger  to  the  other  patients. 
From  1794  until  1856  hardly  a  year  elapsed  when  the 
Hospital  was  free  from  typhus  fever  patients.     From 


24 

1818  to  1828,  the  disease  was  epidemic.  When  it  ap- 
peared in  that  form  the  Governors  adopted  a  resolu- 
tion that  on  this  and  every  similar  occasion  they  would 
gladly  cooperate  with  the  Board  of  Health  by  receiving 
fever  .patients  to  the  limit  that  the  accommodations 
of  the  Hospital  would  permit.  Following  this  policy 
they. treated  in  the  Hospital  an  average  of  about  300 
typhus  patients  in  each  of  those  ten  years.  When  the 
malignant  cholera  broke  out  in  1832,  the  Governors 
decided  that  the  safety  of  their  other  patients  forbade 
the  use  of  the  wards  by  cholera  patients,  but  the  Hos- 
pital cooperated  with  the  Board  of  Health  in  providing 
temporary  cholera  hospitals  in  other  parts  of  the  City. 
With  the  flood  of  immigration  in  1847,  many  typhus 
cases  reached  the  country  and  the  disease  again  became 
epidemic  in  New  York.  The  Hospital  treated  that  year 
1,034  of  these  patients  in  its  newest  building,  North 
House,  which  had  been  set  aside  for  the  purpose,  and 
thanks  to  the  excellent  arrangements  there  made  for 
ventilation,  cleanliness  and  skilful  nursing,  the  mor- 
tality from  the  disease  in  that  building  was  smaller  than 
recorded  in  any  other  similar  establishment  in  the 
country.  New  York  on  the  whole  has  been  fortunate 
in  escaping  epidemics,  but  there  is  another  serious  one 
to  record,  that  of  infantile  paralysis  in  the  summer  and 
autumn  of  1916.  When  the  Department  of  Health 
inquired  of  each  of  the  local  hospitals  what  number  of 
stricken  children  it  could  house  and  treat,  the  Gover- 
nors of  the  New  York  Hospital  decided,  as  they  had 


25 

in  1832  when  cholera  was  epidemic,  that  they  could  not 
assume  the  risk  of  imperiling  the  occupants  of  our 
children's  wards  by  receiving  victims  of  this  dread 
affliction.  But  we  deemed  it  to  be  our  duty  to  care  for 
as  many  children  as  possible  in  some  appropriate  sepa- 
rate building.  Trinity  Church  generously  offered  us 
rent  free  a  vacant  school  house  for  the  purpose,  but  we 
found  a  more  readily  adaptable  structure  in  the  recently 
vacated  home  of  the  Orthopedic  Hospital  in  59th  Street, 
and  that  by  the  kindness  of  the  Trustees  of  the  institu- 
tion having  been  placed  at  our  disposal,  we  fitted  it  up 
in  a  few  days  with  120  beds,  which  were  kept  filled 
during  several  sad  weeks.  No  one  who  saw  those 
appealing  little  faces  can  forget  the  pathos  of  it  all  and 
the  longing  it  excited  to  prevent  a  recurrence  of  such 
a  tragedy.  Through  the  devoted  efforts  of  the  phy- 
sicians and  bacteriologists  and  nurses  who  volunteered 
their  services,  much  was  done  to  alleviate  suffering  and 
ward  off  death,  and  we  still  hope  that  through  the 
valuable  research  work  there  conducted  under  the 
direction  of  Dr.  Edward  C.  Rosenow  of  the  Mayo 
Foundation,  some  knowledge  of  the  incidence  and 
course  of  the  disease  was  gained  that  will  lessen  its 
ravages  in  the  future. 

In  common  with  all  the  hospitals  we  were  called 
upon  in  the  last  four  months  of  1918  to  care  for  the 
many  cases  of  influenza  in  a  specially  insidious  form. 
For  this  treatment  two  of  our  surgical  wards  were 
temporarily  converted   into  medical   wards,  and   560 


26 

influenza  patients  were  treated  there,  of  whom  152 
died.  Several  of  the  doctors  and  forty  of  the  nurses 
treating  these  cases  took  the  disease  themselves,  and 
one  of  the  nurses  died. 

Although  relatively  to  other  institutions  our  hos- 
pital performance  does  not  now  show  that  preeminence 
which  prevailed  in  the  18th  and  19th  centuries,  the 
actual  quantity  and  -variety  of  our  work  were  never  so 
great  as  they  are  at  the  present  time,  nor,  we  are  glad  to 
believe,  was  its  quality  ever  higher.  As  we  have  seen, 
one  department  of  the  Society,  the  House  of  Relief, 
at  Hudson  and  Jay  Streets,  has  been  discontinued  and 
the  building  has  become  a  public  health  hospital.  But 
in  all  other  directions  the  Society  has  been  expanding. 
In  addition  to  the  general  medical  and  surgical  divi- 
sions, and  the  department  of  mental  diseases,  at  White 
Plains,  the  Division  of  Laboratories,  the  Department 
of  Urology  on  the  recently  established  Brady  Founda- 
tion, the  Department  of  Radiology,  the  Social  Service 
Department,  under  the  guidance  of  the  devoted  Ladies 
Auxiliary,  the  various  Out-Patient  clinics,  and  the 
inspiring  hospital  for  convalescent  children  at  White 
Plains,  are  developing  with  admirable  zeal  and  effi- 
ciency, and  have  all  outgrown  their  physical  accommo- 
dations. 

From  the  opening  of  the  Broadway  Hospital  in 
January,  1791,  until  the  1st  of  January,  1921,  the 
Society  treated  in  all  its  departments  a  total  of 
2,015,000  patients.     From   1792  to   1856  it  received 


27 

an  annual  grant  from  the  State,  ranging  from  about 
$5,000  to  $22,500,  but  since  the  latter  date  it  has 
depended  for  its  endowment  principally  upon  the 
fortunate  acquisition  of  its  Broadway  hospital  site, 
which  it  now  leases,  and  of  its  Bloomingdale  hospital 
site  on  Morningside  Heights  which  it  has  sold  and 
where  Columbia  University,  Barnard  College,  the 
National  Academy  of  Design,  St.  Luke's  Hospital,  the 
Woman's  Hospital,  and  the  Cathedral  of  St.  John  the 
Divine  now  stand.  Apart  from  the  generosity  of  its 
Governors  it  has  not  received  pecuniary  aid  from  many 
individuals.  But  after  150  years  it  begins  to  feel  the 
need  of  wider  support  if  it  is  to  continue  to  expand 
its  service  to  the  people  and  to  the  cause  of  medical 
education. 

As  one  of  its  chroniclers  has  said,  the  history  of 
the  New  York  Hospital  is,  in  a  sense,  the  history  of 
the  City  since  the  Revolution.  The  origin  of  the  insti- 
tution had  so  lofty  a  purpose,  its  affairs  were  admin- 
istered with  such  devotion,  the  personnel  of  its  Board 
of  Governors,  its  membership  and  its  medical  staff, 
was  so  representative  of  the  best  the  City  contained, 
that  the  Society  touched  the  community  closely.  Its 
Attending  Physician  was  President  Washington's 
medical  adviser  during  his  official  residence  in  New 
York;  another  Attending  Physician  and  one  of  its 
Attending  Surgeons  ministered  in  1804  to  Alexander 
Hamilton's  fatal  wound;  in  1824,  while  visiting  New 
York,  General  Lafayette  became  our  guest  and  honor- 


28 

ary  member;  in  1862  the  surgeons  of  the  visiting 
French  Fleet  were  entertained  at  the  Hospital,  and  at 
all  times  that  building  was  the  Mecca  of  the  medical 
profession  throughout  the  country.  The  Governors 
have  really  governed.  Faithful  service  has  become 
a  tradition  of  the  Society.  Since  the  opening  of  the 
Hospital  in  1791,  twelve  regular  monthly  meetings  of 
the  Board  have  been  held  each  year,  and  on  only  three 
occasions  has  a  quorum  been  lacking.  The  list  of  the 
Governors  contains  many  noted  names.  Among  them 
have  been  John  Jay,  the  first  Chief  Justice  of  the  United 
States  and  a  Governor  of  the  State,  Robert  R.  Living- 
ston, the  first  Chancellor  of  the  State,  and  James  Kent, 
its  greatest  Chancellor,  Richard  Varick,  Cadwallader 
D.  Colden,  Philip  Hone  and  Abram  S.  Hewitt,  Mayors 
of  the  City,  Aaron  Burr,  afterwards  Vice-President  of 
the  United  States,  Lindley  Murray,  John  Jacob  Astor, 
and  Joseph  H.  Choate. 

But  no  account  of  the  achievements  of  the  Hospital 
in  the  century  and  a  half  of  its  corporate  life  could 
be  complete  which  did  not  award  the  fullest  recognition 
to  the  devoted  band  of  physicians  and  surgeons,  the 
first  of  whom  by  their  commanding  vision  and 
influence  brought  the  institution  into  being,  and  who, 
with  their  successors  during  the  intervening  genera- 
tions down  to  the  present  time,  have  made  its  great 
accomplishments  possible.  An  adequate  appraisal  of 
the  work  of  those  brilliant  practitioners  and  teachers 
must  be   entrusted  to   a   competent   hand,   and   will, 


29 

some  day,  we  may  hope,  be  duly  executed.  But  the 
admiration  and  gratitude  we  all  feel  for  the  noble  ser- 
vice which  they  have  gratuitously  rendered  for  the 
relief  of  the  sick  and  for  the  advancement  of  medical 
education,  must  not  remain  unexpressed  today.  They 
have  included  the  flower  of  the  American  medical  pro- 
fession, and  they  have  left  an  ineffaceable  imprint  on 
the  development  of  the  art  of  medicine.  Their  hall  of 
fame  should  be  secure. 

While  we  are  celebrating  today  a  special  anniver- 
sary, the  occasion  may  also  by  its  implication  have  a 
wider  significance.  In  his  address  here  in  1769,  Dr. 
Bard  seems  to  have  had  for  his  text  that  famous  sen- 
tence of  Cicero  in  his  oration  in  defence  of  Ligarius, 
which  the  Doctor  in  substance  rendered,  that  in  no 
act  does  man  approach  so  near  to  the  Gods  as  when 
he  is  restoring  the  sick  to  the  blessings  of  health. 
This  ideal  of  service  to  the  weak  and  distressed  in  body 
or  mind,  which  underlies  all  our  hospitals,  must  still, 
after  twenty  centuries,  be  ranked  among  the  highest  of 
human  aspirations.  In  its  exercise  it  is  thrice  blessed, 
by  relieving  the  recipient,  by  refining  the  ministrant 
and  by  enriching  the  community.  At  no  time  in  his- 
tory has  there  seemed  to  be  more  acute  need  than  now 
for  the  application  of  that  same  habit  of  tender  benefi- 
cence in  the  affairs  of  each  community  and  of  the 
world  at  large,  to  diminish  suffering,  to  allay  strife  and 
to  perpetuate  peace.     Animated  by  that  conception  of 


30 

the  service  of  man  we  may  all  march  toward  one  goal. 
Surely  such  a  consummation,  to  adopt  another  phrase  of 
the  wise  founders  of  our  institution,  is  "recommended 
at  once  by  the  maxims  of  human  policy  and  the  precepts 
of  divjne  truth". 


SUUTH  PROPE;     " 

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